The Leo Baeck Institute is a research library and archive that contains the most significant collection of material relating to the history of German-speaking Jewry, from its origins to its tragic destruction by the Nazis and continuing to the present day. Founded in 1955, the Institute was named after the last leader of the Jewish community in Germany under the Nazis. Rabbi Leo Baeck survived the concentration camp of Theresienstadt to become the first president of the Institute. The LBI was set up in New York, London and Jerusalem, with New York the site of its library and archives.

The collections include over 10,000 archival records, 2,000 memoirs, 25,000 photographs, 80,000 books and 1,600 periodicals, including collections available at the branch of the LBI Archives at the Jewish Museum Berlin.

The archives offer insight into Jewish scholarship, emancipation and assimilation, anti-Semitism, commercial life, the experience of persecution and emigration, the Holocaust, restitution, Jewish contributions to the arts and sciences, and the daily lives of German-speaking Jews. Community histories and family records form an especially valuable resource for genealogists. A collection of over 2,000 memoirs offers rare insights into the lives of German Jews from 1790 to the post-war era.

Terezin: Synagogue in Theresienstadt by Norbert Troller, 1942, watercolour, LBI Art Collection. Born in Brno in 1896, the architect N. Troller was deported to Theresienstadt in 1942 where he produced artwork depicting the conditions in the camp.

The recent launch of DigiBaeck – a digital gateway of LBI’s collections – is transforming the way scholars and other users engage with the Institute’s material which includes 3.5 million pages that range from personal papers and photographs of Albert Einstein and Moses Mendelssohn to letters, diaries, recipes, and other ephemera chronicling the everyday lives of German-speaking Jews over five centuries.

The Institute’s art collection ranges from engravings depicting Jewish life in German lands in the 16th century to abstract works by German-Jewish émigrés in the second half of the 20th century. Among the thousands of paintings, sculptures, watercolours, drawings, and prints are many works of great artistic and historical significance. The art collection forms an unparalleled documentation of the material culture of German-speaking Jewry. LBI also holds archival material about German Jewish art collections, their loss and their restitution.

Birthday Card for a “Wanderer” was found in the Leo Baeck Institute’s Margaret Rothenberger Family Collection. It is part of a scrapbook documenting the family’s two years in France, 1933-1935, after they fled Germany and before they immigrated to the United States. Created by Margaret Rothenberger for her youngest daughter, Ilse, the card, illustrates the family’s journey and reads: 1. Exodus of the children of Israel from the land of 10,000,000 plagues 2. Until something better turns up 3. God’s own land Dedicated to the youngest of the 4 wanderers between 2 worlds, on her 11th birthday, by the master painter Margaret, 7/12/35.

Editor: Lena Stanley-Clamp, European Association for Jewish Culture, London
with contributions from
Center for Jewish History, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research,
Leo Baeck College, The Royal Library of Denmark | Contact us | Subscribe to Judaica Europeana Newsletter